Three Poems


SOMERTON MOOR

I.

You are unusual, but the touch
Of innocence may sear a mind.
I know who say so, for I am
The prisoner of a loving ghost

O death, come quickly, for the fiend
Crosses the marshes with my tears.

II.

Under the peat, dark mystery of earth,
Fire of the hearth, enchanter of my heart
The smoke that rises is a sacrifice
The peat moves over in its sodden sleep

And I, who should have touched her with my wand
Let her evade beneath the burning turf
And now through smoke and bitterness I speak
Words she would recognise and no one else
And she can no more hear than oyster-ears.
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